Some American Christians Don’t Believe the Gospel Anymore

November 18, 2015

The saying goes, “Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.”

It’s not my voice shaking, but my fingers on the keyboard. I can’t stop the pounding in my chest or the torrent of thoughts in my head. I’m a born justice-seeker. It’s built into my DNA and it accounts for the “J” in my Myers-Briggs INFJ personality profile.

Injustice infuriates me. It causes rage to seep from every pore in my body.

On the other hand, I’m a self-professed people-pleaser who actively avoids confrontation and bends over backward to “be nice” and not ruffle feathers.

It’s going to make you angry and you’re going to “unsubscribe” or “unfollow” or whatever it is you do. Some of you might even hurl angry comments my way, but truthfully, my comment section has been crickets over here so at this point I’d actually appreciate any action I could get.

Here’s what you need to know about me—what those of you who read my words regularly already know:

I love Jesus.

I love the Gospel message of love coming down to save the world. It means everything to me. And like the apostle Paul in his letter to the Roman church,

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” Romans 1:16

So if what I have to say here today offends you, I will point you back to the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ. And as his disciples were told to do, I will shake the dust off my feet and move on.

American Christians don’t believe the Gospel anymore.

Oh, sure, we think we do. But what we believe — or at least what our speech and our actions communicate— is not the Gospel message at all.

Here is the gospel message in a nutshell:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

To summarize: God makes humans. Humans mess up and turn away from God. God stillloves humans. So much that He takes drastic measures to save them. He sends His Son to become one of them–not to condemn them for messing up, but to save them. Because He loves them.

It’s so simple a child can understand it.

But apparently, a huge chunk of the new “American Nationalism” Christians cannot.

August 15, 2015. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

A handicapped Syrian refugee woman cries as other refugees lift her on a wheelchair at the Greek-Macedonian border, August 22, 2015. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

We have a crisis on our hands with evil terrorists who are wreaking havoc in the world. Because of the terror they spread, we have a refugee crisis as well. People have fled from their homes because they and their children are in imminent danger. They are quite literally running for their lives.

And now, because of the incident last week in Paris, we Americans (particularly those among us who like to brag most about our Christianity) are buckling down and puffing out our chests to oppose the threat of terrorists hiding among the refugees.

Here’s my biggest problem with it all. I am a mother. If my children were in danger, I would move heaven and earth to keep them safe.

If it meant fleeing a war-torn country, I would take that chance.

If it meant crossing a border into an unwelcoming nation, I would risk it.

If it meant leaving behind my home and all my belongings, I wouldn’t even think twice.

So when I see pictures of Syrian refugees (and I mean actual photographs from reliable news sources), I can’t help but impose the face of my own children. I can’t help but think how desperate I would feel in that situation to find refuge for them. Of how I would beg, borrow, or steal in order to provide their basic needs and give them a chance at life.

Contrast that with the prevailing “Christian” attitude of many Americans right now: the insistence that we lock our doors tight and pretend nobody’s home.

Here’s a news flash for those of you who only get your “news” from sensationalist right-wing sources: these refugees are actually human beings.Human beings created in the image of God. God loves and cares for them.

He cares for and is on the side of the innocent.

The truth you don’t want to acknowledge? The vast majority of these refugees are innocents.

A Syrian woman changes her child’s diaper as migrants and refugees queue at a camp to register after crossing the Greek-Macedonian borderon September 22, 2015. NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV/AFP/Getty Images)

A Syrian refugee child sleeps in his father’s arms after arriving on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos. (Photo AP)

As a mother, as a Christian, and as a human being, I will never understand a philosophy that blames innocents for nothing other than where they happened to be born. Because let me assure you, if you had been born in Syria, you would likely be a Muslim too. And you would be fleeing your war-torn country with your children in tow right at this moment. The tables turned, you yourself would be the refugee.

So I have to ask, with all sincerity, “American Christians, do you actually believe the Gospel?”

The overwhelming rally cry of “American” Christianity over the years is that we must return this great nation to its Christian roots. We complain that God is taken out of our schools and our public venues, that the secular humanists and the atheists and (vilest of all) the “liberals” want to remove God from our very way of life.

“American” Christianity proponents lecture long and hard over the importance of “family values” and basic decency. They vilify any who oppose the “Christian” way of life as they stand up loudly for what they believe.

And then the opportunity comes to prove it.

The unthinkable happens and the “Christian” America is handed a real and tangible opportunity to put faith into action. To live out the words they are so fond of preaching with vehemence from both the political dais and the pulpit.

We have a golden opportunity to show what we believe. And what do we do instead?

We slam the door in love’s face.

Children wait behind a fence to pass with their families in the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija. (AP Photo/Borce Popovski)

June 14, 2015 CREDIT LEFTERIS PITARAKIS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) staff assist a young girl in a wheelchair as she enters, along with other migrants and refugees, a registration camp after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border near Gevgelija on November 12, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ROBERT ATANASOVSKI (Photo credit should read ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

If you are one of these Christians who has decided that we have every right and obligation to shut our doors to refugees seeking asylum, perhaps you should try turning off your beloved cable news channel and opening your Bible instead.

What greater opportunity to share the gospel — the actual Good News that Jesus offers — than with the oppressed, the unwanted, the endangered. The homeless, the destitute, the orphaned, the hungry, the naked, the lost. Those who are running for their lives, just as Mary and Joseph did with Jesus in tow 2000 years ago.

We say we believe in a God who desires to save all people—but we make blanket decisions on whom to exclude. We decide based on our “American values” who is in and who is out. And we turn away people who look different and who come from the very part of the world where our own Lord and Savior made his home.

I say this with all the grace and love I can muster, which admittedly is not enough right at this moment.

But still, the fire in my belly might explode if I don’t speak this truth: if you are allowing politicians, corporate media organizations, and misinformed fear-mongerers to direct your faith,

You. Are. Wrong.

I understand the pull. We are born with a natural curiosity and an appetite for outrage. In our media-saturated world, we get more information than we know what to do with and false prophets abound. It’s easy to fall into the mob mentality.

But it’s wrong.

A Syrian man walks amid destruction in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on April 10, 2013. DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images)

To those of you who get your gospel from Fox News or Matt Walsh or Donald Trump: I’m sorry, but you are wrong.

You are fond of saying that Christians must not tolerate sin — that we are commanded by God to stand up against the evils of homosexuality and abortion and liberalism. You make heroes out of the likes of Kim Davis and Joshua Fueurstein and the Duggars — people who “uphold the faith” in the midst of what you call “persecution.”

And yet when an actual opportunity to spread the gospel falls into your lap, when a door opens wide for you to be a witness, a light in the darkness, proclaiming God’s love, mercy and compassion for people — ALL people — of His long-suffering patience and desire that ALL come to Him, how do you respond?

You stand your “holy” ground and applaud the bullies who brutally slam the gates shut and erect fences of barbed wire in the faces of children. Children who could be yours if you simply had the misfortune of being born in a different place.

So I say it unabashedly.

You. Are. Wrong.

This. Is. Wrong.

It is a slap in the face of true Gospel.

PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images)

I’m not a preacher. Maybe if I’d been born into a different faith tradition I would be. But I’ve read and studied the Bible. I know Jesus.

And I know the Gospel. It’s my fight song.

There’s no need for me to come up with fancy words or rhetoric to defend my position— both Old and New Testaments do the work for me.

You say we Christians should stand up for what is right?I will do just that.

I will stand on the side of justice, of love, mercy, and compassion. Of grace and goodness and of the Gospel message of my Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t sing your Christmas carols of a baby laid in a manger and then with smug certainty turn your back on homeless, terrified children begging for a chance at life.

It’s hypocrisy at its worst. You sit beside your lighted tree and tell the Christmas story to your children, the part about how there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the inn. . . and then in an irony that is completely lost on you, you become the innkeeper in the story. You shut out the very Son of God.

A man carries a young girl who was injured in a reported barrel-bomb attack by government forces on June 3, 2014 in Kallaseh district in the northern city of Aleppo. Some 2,000 civilians, including more than 500 children, have been killed in regime air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo since January, many of them in barrel bomb attacks. BARAA AL-HALABI/AFP/Getty Images

Perhaps you are right about one thing.

Maybe there is a War on Christianity after all.

It’s just not the war you thought it was.

Instead, you are the ones perpetrating it. The modern day Pharisees who would gleefully hang a young middle eastern carpenter on a cross because of his radical talk of a different kingdom. You would string him up while shouting “terrorist” and boast of your bravery and fortitude.

That’s the real war on Christianity. But like the Pharisees, you’re too blind to see it.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand there’s a danger factor. You say you’re protecting your own. There might be a terrorist among them, these refugees, and we can’t take that chance. “What if they killed our children?” you ask.

Well the truth is, we are doing that job all by ourselves. We stood by three years ago as our children WERE gunned down in a lazy Connecticut town while attending school.

And We. Did. Nothing.

We’ve ignored statistics and facts and the standards set by every other civilized nation and we keep killing ourselves. All because we are more enamored with our weapons than we are with actual human lives. In the days that followed the Sandy Hook tragedy, when we refused to change our laws to protect the innocent, we laid the lives of our children as sacrifices on the altar of the almighty NRA (a modern day Molech if there ever was one).

American Christians, will you ever wake up?

You say there’s a holocaust going on under our noses. You speak of Planned Parenthood and “pro-choice” voters as “baby-killers” and post horrific videos of abortion online. You claim to be pro-life. And yet you can view an image of a dead three-year old on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and are so desensitized to the fact that he was an actual human being, one of the “red and yellow, black and white” you sing about in Sunday School, that you can still defiantly look at the eyes of other children like him and say, “NO.”

Washed up body of a refugee child who drowned during a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos, at the shore in the coastal town of Bodrum, Mugla city, Turkey, 02 September 2015. At least 11 Syrian migrants died in boat sank after leaving Turkey for the Greek island of Kos. EPA/DOGAN NEWS AGENCY

Because yours is an exclusive club and they don’t know the password.

You like to say that if you were challenged at gunpoint with the question, “Do you believe in God?” you would unflinchingly answer “YES” and risk the consequence of a brutal death.

But when given the opportunity to stand for the less fortunate, the least of these, for Christ Himself, you pride yourself on loudly proclaiming, “NO!”

You will brag about standing up for Jesus by ordering a barista to write “Merry Christmas” on the outside of your $7 paper coffee cup.

But you deny Christ to His very face by refusing to see those created in His image as people worth saving.

You. Are. Wrong.

And if you won’t take my word for it, take His:

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ ” Matthew 25:41-45

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:17-19

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.” Matthew 2:13-14

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:15-17

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also.” Hebrews 13:1-3

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” James 2:14-17

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” 1 John 4:19-20

Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'” Matthew 19:14

This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. . .if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.” Jeremiah 22:3, 5

And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty said: Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’” Zechariah 7:8-10

American Christians, for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I beg you. Please wake up.

Featured Image: Nov. 16, 2014. IMAGE: VADIM GHIRDA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Anna

I am trying to find the words to articulate how I feel about what you’ve said, but all that comes to mind is THANK YOU. This is convicting in a way that people NEED to be convicted… Over the past few years, I have struggled mightily with the American church. I’m a Christian, but that word seems to mean so little these days. I’ve been fed up and frustrated for many of the same reasons you’ve mentioned here. How can we call ourselves followers of Christ and then turn around and proudly put our own needs above the needs of others? How can we make choices out of fear and claim to have the almighty God behind us?

Exactly, Anna! I’m so glad this post resonated with you and that you feel the same way. Blessings to you this Christmas!

robertflynn

Amen. American Christians talk about the Bible but appear not to have read it. They hear what TV hate and fear mongers on TV preach what the Bible says. At least in Texas when charitable organizations, some of them Christian, refused to deny refuge to Syrian refugees the Texas governor backed down from his promise to punish them for acting like Christians. However, the fear and hate Christians haven’t changed.

Gladgran

Thank you for writing this eloquent plea. It is sad that fear overrules love and compassion–and that is exactly the reaction the killers wanted. Working for peace and justice is the best way not only to be safer, but it’s also the way of your Christian faith. And of my Unitarian Universalist faith–we’re Standing on the Side of Love, always.

Christina Crymsen

Great article Sheri….. I reposted in onto facebook, with the caption, Who is our neighbor? I have no doubt as to how Christians should feel about this issue. This shouldn’t be about politics but Christian compassion Blessings, Christina Crymsen

Catherine Stanley

I’m not a Christian and I agree with everything you wrote. If someones going to believe in something they should believe in it fully not only the parts you want to believe. The bible does has much love in it and it’s funny that love is what a lot of Christains are missing.

Thank you, Catherine. The whole entire theme of the Bible is love, it’s what Christians are supposed to bs about, so I couldn’t agree more! Thanks for reading.

Mary Berry

Sheri, I too am a native Texan but live in another state. I too am an INFJ and totally get your sense of injustice in this situation and in any unjust situation! Having made my own statements and posts on FaceBook I also understand not wanting to offend and I have offended. However, it is time to stand up. It is time to say what needs to be said. It is time to choose love over fear. While none of us chooses to place ourselves in a place of danger, there are worse things than dying for what we know is right. This is one of those times. Thank you, Sheri. Thank you for telling the truth. <3

Thank you, Mary. Texans tend to have a different mentality sometimes, plus we like to be friendly and polite, too! So it makes it hard to speak up sometimes! Thanks for your encouragement!!

Katie Minter Gates

Hi Sheri!

Thank you for these thoughts! You clearly have passion oozing out of you and I love it. It cracked me up when you said you were a born justice seeker and that it’s built into your DNA. I am the EXACT same way.

I will say that this is probably the 3rd time in the 9 years I’ve been on social media have I ever commented on a controversial post. I too am a people pleaser and never want to say something that could potentially hurt someones feelings. If I ever found out that I offended someone or hurt someones feelings, then I am undone. So with that being said, I never comment even if I disagree because I don’t see the point in people going back and forth on something that they probably aren’t going to change their minds over.

But this really hit close to home with me because I understand where you are. This is the exact same place I was 5 years ago. My sister invited me on a trip to brazil with a justice mission organization. It’s an organization where we reach the forgotten people of the amazon river. I went really excited to serve. Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to be a part of. The first village that we came to was an indian village literally in the middle of nowhere. The mother had lost her husband and she had 6 children. ( 3 of them she “adopted” from another village as their parents had died). They lived in a tarp. The children were hungry and naked. One was lying on the ground with a high temperature and so ill he couldn’t move.

I am a mother of 3 with a wonderful husband, and a nice house living in the middle of suburbia. So, you can imagine how I was processing what I was seeing. The team gathered together to serve this family and I started walking away into the jungle away from the group. My mind was racing so fast I couldn’t process it anymore. I won’t forget it as long as I live. My knees gave out and I fell onto the ground sobbing. What have I been doing???? What have I been spending my money on? Why am I not helping these people? I wept with what felt like an eternity. It was the first time where I ever actually felt the Lords presence as if He were standing there with me. That was my time that the Lord opened my eyes. I felt alive. I was awake. My life was truly changed forever.

I came home a different person. Everyone noticed it. I longed to do more in my community and to do what the Lord had commanded us to do. He told us to take in the orphans, the widows, and the poor. But slowly over time I started to find myself getting angry with other christians who weren’t doing more. I felt like all I could see in the church were all these moms meeting for bible study and then going out to lunch afterward. What were these women doing beside helping themselves? What were they doing to help out our community? What is the church doing? The more I felt this way, the more I noticed a strain on my relationship with Christ. I was dead wrong. While the Lord had absolutely given me a passion to help those in need, I was listening to another voice that was telling me I was a little bit better than other christians. Once again, I found myself before Him repenting of my pride.

I will say that I love your passion. You clearly love Jesus with your whole heart. He has given you this amazing gift that you can use for His glory. I agree with what you write about loving and taking these people in. I would ask you to prayerfully consider how you wrote it. I am guessing that your goal was to have christians wake up to the gospel? But if I am being honest, I was put off when you kept writing over and over YOU.ARE.WRONG. How many times have you seen a person come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ by someone wagging their finger at them telling them are wrong. Never. The minute a person feels judged, they’re going to run the other direction. It’s when the Lord’s love is flowing through a person that they are desperate to have that as well. It’s always going to be love. Every. Single. Time.

We must choose to speak with grace and love. We are all on our own spiritual journey. Who I am now is the complete opposite of who I was 10 years ago. If the older me told the younger me that I was wrong with how I was living, I would have gotten defensive and mad. But if someone came along side me and just loved me and encouraged me to see that the Lord has so much more for me, I can imagine I would’ve responded with more of a willingness to change.

The Lord tells us to love… but now just the poor. He tells us to love everyone including the fellow believers that just may not be where you are yet on their journey.

Katie,
Thank you for sharing your story with me. I love everything you said and just as you can hear the passion oozing out of me, I can see the love oozing out of you. And I agree with you. I didn’t want to say it that way and I always try to word things in a more eloquent way. And yet out of total frustration those were the only words that kept coming to mind.

I was so fed up with all the hatred and fear I was seeing and it all came out in that post. But you are correct: accusation never changes anyone’s minds.

I’m not sure I expected to change anyone’s mind, but I digress. I think I said it even in the post…that it wasn’t gonna be graceful or loving enough. But I did want my words to be strong enough that people could understand the level of emphasis. It’s always hard when it’s written down as opposed to spoken. So there’s that.

Let’s just say this was an instance where I was Peter, stepping in and cutting off the soldier’s ear. Impulsive, yes; wanting to defend Jesus, yes; above reproach, definitely not!

I really appreciate your comment though, because it truly is “constructive” criticism, offered out of love, and it made me think.

Thank you for reading and for your advice. Let’s be friends!!

Marti

You have so eloquently composed the very thoughts tearing through my mind these last few weeks and months. Thank you for taking the time to compile this plea and for your courage to post it for all to see.

I, too, am very upset by the suffering. I cried out to God in prayer at the image of the boy on the beach. I am also saddened at the seemingly hateful words you paint me and all Christians in our country. I and Christians I know could care less about the Starbucks cups, for instance. For all we know, this could be anyone who wants to make us look bad by just SAYING it’s Christians that are outraged. I care for immigrants and visitors from other countries as a nurse in a hospital near the Canadian border where many from Iran, South America, Mexico, and China come to have their babies so they can immigrate here later. As I push aside any suspicians, I help them learn how to nuture their babes with all the love God gives me to show them. I have aided orphans and widows in person after an earthquake and a hurricane. I currently care for orphans in our foster care system. Please don’t put all Christians in the same box. There are wolves in sheep’s clothing among us that try to sound like Christians. The accusations, declarations, and finger wagging hurts more people and further divides us. And yes, maybe we should have helped Syrian’s five years ago in their own country when the US promised to. Now, after the gov’t can figure out how to keep us safe as possible, we are ready to welcome them. Don’t let an ignorant few define us. I forgive your painful words written in desparate times and will be in prayer for the hearts of Americans, Christian or not.

The title says it: “Some” American Christians. Never tried to paint all Christians that way as I know too many who are faithful and believe the Gospel and its mandates. Thank you for reading, though! 😉

Adela Just

I have been staring at a blank screen trying to come up with words for the intense grief in my heart as I watch what is playing out with American Christians right now. This post, this is what I wish I would have written. I love your courage here. Help us, Lord.

Sheri,
I am about to write something that I bet you thought the jerk you knew in college would never say, “I completely agree with you.” As followers of Christ in the fallen world, we are by definition sojourners, visitors, outcasts. To turn our backs on those in need in any circumstance is not acceptable. I won’t try to expound on anything because it would do nothing to add to your thoughts. I just agree.

I might go one step farther and say that the term “Christian” and the phrase “Don’t believe the Gospel” cannot co-exist. If one is a Christian, he/she believes and clings to the Gospel. If one does not believe it, they cannot aline themselves with the risen Christ. There is no middle ground.

I am glad that you put the word ‘some’ in there. Too many people bundle everyone in a given group as all the same. Just like its not true in those instances, its not true in this one.

If only we could go back and re-live our college days with our middle-aged wisdom, huh? 😉 Thank you, Tracy! And that’s exactly why I put the word “some” in there. I know so many people who hold the Gospel of Jesus Christ as dear as I do! Thank you for being one of them.

Kelsie

I’m one of those awful 🙂 Atheists, but I couldn’t love this post more. I may not subscribe to the veracity of Christian Bible, but I spent 25+ years in the Christian church and never heard such a poignant message of compassion and call to actually “act” according to the teachings. My heart breaks every time I get on social media these days and see family and friends — those who strongly cite their Christian beliefs — display such hatred toward a people in such dire need of love. I know some of it is ignorance, that understanding the difference between refugees and illegal immigrants, or the difference between being Muslim and being (radical) Islam is not clear to many people, but outside of that ignorance is an American culture that has facilitated a sense of entitlement. So much so, we view the world and all its inhabitants as “us” versus “them” rather than us all being HUMAN.

We’re all in this together, regardless of our religious beliefs, nationalities or skin color. The good in humanity exists because we choose to do good. Thank you for writing this post, and for being the good.

thank you for writing this down so clear Just the reason why i co to Calais the jungle even ifnot all my christian brothers and sister understand! Jesus told us to take care of the stranger in our mids And this is europe so it is close by for me . I will share this if you dont mind!! And if people start sutting words at you Its because you spoke the truth !! Thank you again and be blessed

Thank you so much for this post. (Actually, thank you Steve Dobbins for sharing it on Facebook so I could read it here.) For more than a few years I have questioned Christianity and where my beliefs fit in. I roll my eyes when I hear about the red Starbucks cup, the fight for prayer in public school, etc. The Christian backlash on the Syrian refugee crisis, homosexuality, homelessness, gun control…has driven me away from religion. But you reminded me that hypocrisy is a human weakness. The people who espouse hate in God’s name are not following God’s true word. You reminded me God is love.

Thank you! If I reminded you that God is indeed love and that the Gospel is good news for ALL people EVERYWHERE, then it is worth any backlash the haters can dish out. And a shout out to Steve for sharing this!

Melissa

Thank you! Your words describe the pain and sorrow that is in my heart as I see so much suffering around us.

I know, Melissa. My heart is breaking already. And then to see the anger and unChristian backlash from so many…well, it’s almost more than I can take. Thank you for reading!

Angela Linam

I have been “here” since I read your words first thing this morning. They have stayed with me…and will. Your words are my heart, Sheri. You so perfectly articulated the tension and heartbreak I have been attempting to process. The positions paraded about and beliefs held by so many Western Christians are the height of hypocrisy and ignorance and fly in the face of all we are supposed to stand for…all that Jesus was and is! People rail against “them” not allowing God in our schools (or our Starbuck’s…I can’t even type that with a straight face) while flagrantly disregarding the very Word of God they are vehemently blaming others for disregarding. It makes no sense. And I’ve no doubt it breaks the heart of God. I wish your words could be the topic of a Bible Study or message in every single church in this country. Thank you, my friend, thank you…for being willing to speak truth that so desperately needs to be heard. I pray hearts might be changed and scales removed from eyes.

Thank you, friend. I pray the same. We see issues like this come and go, but this one has got my heart all tied in knots. I can barely think about it without crying and I couldn’t go one minute longer yesterday without writing it all down. I love you and miss you.

Angela Linam

I love and miss you, too. We have so much catching up to do. There is still much I would love us to do together when my situation allows that. Thank you again for daring to so perfectly articulate these realities.

Sara Caldwell

The most spot on dose of truth I’ve read on this issue! ! Thank you SO much for putting pen to paper! Blessings to you!

Blessings to you as well, Sara, and thanks for the encouragement. I was terrified to publish this but it needs to be said!

Meet Sheri

Thanks for stopping by! This is where I pour out my thoughts on faith, struggle, and abundant life.
As a girl who's sung my way through life, I like to think these musings are lyrics, resonating the heart of my story. I hope my story sings to you--and inspires you to sing your own!

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